“No,” answered the priest in the same low voice; “if they listen long to the dying, the cry gets fixed in their imagination, and they hear it after the death, and think the spirit haunts the place.  Their fear and horror of the dead is beyond belief.  They’ll turn a dying man out of his own house, and not by the door, but through a hole in the roof.  Or they pull out a log to make an opening, closing it up quick, so the spirit won’t find his way back.”

Kaviak continued to lament.

“Sorry we can’t offer you some blubber, Kaviak.”

“‘Tain’t that he’s missin’; he’s got an inexhaustible store of his own.  His mistake is offerin’ it to us.”

“I know what’s the matter with that little shaver,” said the Boy.  “He hasn’t got any stool, and you keep him standin’ on those legs of his like matches.”

“Let him sit on the buffalo-skin there,” said Mac gruffly.

“Don’t you s’pose he’s thought o’ the buffalo-skin?  But he’d hate it.  A little fella likes to be up where he can see what’s goin’ on.  He’d feel as lost ’way down there on the buffalo as a puppy in a corn-brake.”

The Boy was standing up, looking round.

“I know.  Elephas! come along, Jimmie!” In spite of remonstrance, they rushed to the door and dragged in the “fossle.”  When Nicholas and his friends realised what was happening, they got up grunting and protesting.  “Lend a hand, Andrew,” the Boy called to the man nearest.

“No—­no!” objected the true son of the Church, with uncommon fervour.

“You, then, Nicholas.”

"Oo, ha, oo! No touch!  No touch!”

“What’s up?  You don’t know what this is.”

“Huh!  Nicholas know plenty well.  Nicholas no touch bones of dead devils.”  This view of the “fossle” so delighted the company that, acting on a sudden impulse, they pushed the punch-bowl out of the way, and, with a whoop, hoisted the huge thing on the table.  Then the Boy seized the whimpering Kaviak, and set him high on the throne.  So surprised was the topmost Spissimen that he was as quiet for a moment as the one underneath him, staring about, blinking.  Then, looking down at Mac’s punch-cup, he remembered his grievance, and took up the wail where he had left it off.

“Nuh, nuh! don’t you do that,” said the Boy with startling suddenness.  “If you make that noise, I’ll have to make a worse one.  If you cry, Kaviak, I’ll have to sing.  Hmt, hmt! don’t you do it.”  And as Kaviak, in spite of instructions, began to bawl, the Boy began to do a plantation jig, crooning monotonously: 

  “‘Grashoppah sett’n on de swee’ p’tater vine,
  Swee’ p’tater vine, swee’ p’tater vine;
  Grasshoppah—­’”

He stopped as suddenly as he’d begun. “Now, will you be good?”

Kaviak drew a breath with a catch in it, looked round, and began as firmly as ever: 

“Weh!—­eh!—­eh!”

“Sh—­sh!” The Boy clapped his hands, and lugubriously intoned: